In the new issue of Regulation, economist Pierre Lemieux argues that the recent oil price decline is at least partly the result of increased supply from the extraction of shale oil. The increased supply allows the economy to produce more goods, which benefits some people, if not all of them. Thus, contrary to some commentary in the press, cheaper oil prices cannot harm the economy as a whole.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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Tag: moral panic

Want to understand a big chunk of what Washington, D.C. does? Learn about “moral panic.”

Moral panic is a dynamic in the political and media spheres in which some threat to social order—often something taboo—causes a response that goes far beyond meeting the actual threat. It’s a socio-political stampede, if you will. You might be surprised to learn how easily stampeded your society is.

Take a look at H.R. 1981, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011. It’s got everything: porn, children, the Internet. And it’s got everything: financial services providers dragooned into law enforcement, data retention requirements heaped on Internet service providers, expanded “administrative subpoena” authority. (Administrative subpoenas are an improvisation to accommodate the massive power of the bureaucracy, and they’ve become another end-run around the Fourth Amendment. If it’s “administrative” it must be reasonable, goes the non-thinking…)

This isn’t a bill about child predation. It’s a bald-faced attack on privacy and limited government. Congress can move legislation like this, even in the era of the Tea Party movement, because child predation is a taboo subject. The inference is too strong in too many minds that opposing government in-roads on privacy is somehow supporting child exploitation. Congress and its allies use taboos to cow the populace into accepting yet more government growth and yet more surveillance.

I’m not turned to mush by taboos, so the question I’m most interested in having asked at tomorrow’s hearing on the bill in the House Judiciary Committee is: “Under what theory of the Commerce Clause is this bill within the power of the federal government?”